


Tree

by Marsalias



Series: Grandfather Clocks [4]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Clockwork has hobbies, Danny deserves those cookies, Fluff, Gen, Lost Time, continuing Clockwork's weird fixation on giving Danny cookies, platonic Danny and Clockwork, the Observants are mean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23702146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: Danny wants to get Clockwork a gift.  But what would the Master of Time like?
Series: Grandfather Clocks [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706959
Comments: 9
Kudos: 337
Collections: Love dan





	Tree

Clockwork was calling Danny in for help more often now. The problems were never very hard to solve, at least once the time travel was taken care of. It rarely took him longer than a couple of hours to track down whoever or whatever had been lost, and at least half of the ghosts he retrieved wanted to go back. Most of the places he was sent had languages he knew, or was learning. Danny had the feeling that Clockwork was slowly easing him into the idea of interacting with ancient and historical cultures. That, maybe, some day, he would be able to do something more for the older ghost.

Danny was easing into a lot of things, lately.

For example, Danny was getting better at telling when Clockwork was about to show up. He had started to get this feeling, just a moment before Clockwork stopped time. It wasn't his ghost sense, but it wasn't not his ghost sense.

Sam thought that he might be developing a sixth (seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth...) sense. Some kind of precognitive ability. It was Danny's suspicion, however, that Clockwork was doing this on purpose. That he was revealing himself partially to Danny so that Danny wouldn't be so surprised when a time medallion thumped against his chest.

For another, Danny had begun to call Clockwork 'Grandfather.' It had started as a joke, a pun, really. Calling Clockwork a grandfather clock was an easy jump, a silly nickname that Clockwork seemed to like. But then, Danny had started to get lazy, or, more accurately, tired at the end of missions, and one slip became two, three, four...

Danny was also gradually becoming better acquainted with Long Now. Clockwork would often let him, even encourage him, to explore the lair while he recovered from a mission, or waited for Clockwork to release a captured ghost. Danny had still only scratched its surface. Long Now was easily as large as all of Vlad's mansions put together.

So, Danny was always finding things that surprised him. Like the library that could almost rival Ghost Writer's, or the room occupied by what looked like nothing so much as a vast, interlocking, multidimensional, many-colored chess game.

Today, so far, Danny had found the kitchen, which he had found before, but which always seemed to be in a different place, and a room which had contained a single full-length mirror. The mirror had made him feel weird. Anxious. Then again, Danny often felt anxious. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that the mirror hadn't reflected him correctly.

He decided to get some distance away from that room before opening another door.

The next door he opened led outside, into an enclosed courtyard. This was surprising in and of itself. Danny hadn't realized that the tower had such a feature. He stepped out, hesitant, but pleasantly surprised. Thus far, Danny had encountered little in the way of plant (after?) life in the Ghost Zone.

The courtyard was circular, and divided into thirteen segments separated by walkways. Twelve of them bordered the edge, the thirteenth was is the center. The twelve outside ones each roughly corresponded to a month of the year. Two to his left were snowing, whereas Danny could feel heat coming from the flowering beds to his right. Where he was standing, the plants were bearing fruits and nuts.

In the center, was a huge tree, hugged by grapevines. Some of the branches were flowering. Some were bare. Others carried leaves and fruit, still others were shedding them. Danny walked towards it, curious. Not all of the fruits looked the same. Indeed, he had seen apples hanging next to cherries.

Once he was underneath the tree's spreading branches, he pushed himself lightly off the ground. An examination of the branches showed that they had been grafted on, most of the seams so old they were almost invisible.

Danny selected a peach from one of the summery branches, and then settled on one of the bare branches. He was, at this point, comfortable enough in Long Now, and with Clockwork to do this without worry.

He hadn't known that Clockwork liked to garden. This gave him an idea.

.

.

.

Danny had asked for Sam's help. Sam knew a lot about plants, way more than Danny did, although Danny had been trying to at least learn what was edible.

He was doing a lot of time travel stuff lately. Odds were, he'd find himself stranded without food at some point. That was just what his luck was like, no matter that Clockwork wouldn't purposefully do that to him.

Sam, in the course of setting up and maintaining her greenhouse, had done a lot of research on rare, carnivorous, pretty, or otherwise cool plants. Including fruit trees.

Sam had, after Danny had explained what he wanted to do, made a list of possible trees. Danny had spent a long time going through the list. Some of them, he crossed off right away as being too expensive. Most of Danny, Jazz, Sam, and Tucker's pooled allowance was spent on things like first aid supplies and replacement clothes.

A couple were, honestly, a bit too embarrassing to buy, either because of the names, or because of how frilly and pink the flowers were.

(Danny didnt always have shame, but when he did, it was over really silly things.)

That left just a couple of options. After quite a bit of rolling around on his bed and groaning, a fight with a giant ghost weasel, and an encounter with Lunch Lady that had started as a fight but morphed into her trying to feed him suspiciously green ham sandwiches, he decided on a nice looking apple cultivar. It was one of those genetically modified ones, guaranteed to be tart and crisp. Danny had been surprised at first, when Sam had recommended it, but when he voiced his surprise, she had gone off on a rant about 'golden rice' and malnutrition that he had mostly tuned out.

(He used to feel bad about doing that, but if he didn't he'd drive himself insane. Ghostly Obsessions didn't have spacial limits. If he didn't mentally distance himself from problems like that, he'd try to solve them, and the fact was that he was just one person. He _couldn't_ solve them all. Clockwork said that this would be less of an issue for him as he got a better handle on things, but for now, Sam understood. She just couldn't help herself sometimes. Just like Danny.)

However, the first time he bought one, it got destroyed by Skulker before he even got it home. The second time it was eaten by a swarm of ghost termites (Sometimes Danny wondered if the universe was out to get him. He hadn't even heard of ghost termites before.). Then he had to wait a month, because fruit trees were weirdly expensive, and he was out of money.

Once he had bought a third tree, it was almost a mini-Obsession, and he was so touchy and defensive of it that most of the other ghosts steered clear. He was going to get the tree to Clockwork, one way or another.

There were a few ghosts, however, who hadn't gotten the memo.

Danny felt them before he saw them, and he froze. Those were not friendly ectosignatures, and they were strong ones. Not a good combination. He whirled, trying to locate the ghosts. He would, under these circumstances, prefer fleeing to fighting. He didn't want to kill the tree again, and he really didn't want to fight. If it was to protect someone, that was one thing, but he was out by himself in the middle of the Ghost Zone. The goal here was self-preservation.

Then he saw them. One of them, anyway. An Observant. There would be another one. Danny could count the number of times he had encountered Observants on one hand, but they always traveled in pairs.

Maybe they hadn't seen him yet. Maybe he could sink into invisibility, true and complete invisibility. Maybe he could slip away.

This hope was dashed when the eyeball ghost looked directly at him, and loudly announced, "Well, if it isn't Clockwork's little pet."

Danny flinched, but didn't say anything. He knew better than to treat an Observant the way he would usually treat a ghost that was insulting him like that. Observants were powerful and dangerous. Their organization more so. He knew very well that they had tried to make Clockwork kill him. He knew that they would try to have him killed again, if they gave him an excuse.

He backed away, keeping his eyes an the threat, and his arms wrapped around the plant. He was hugging it like a safety blanket, but he was also ready to abandon it at a moment's notice. Overall, he preferred to live. He could always get another tree. As for his life, well, he had already had so many second chances. He doubted that the universe would give him another.

"Looks a little preoccupied, doesn't it?" said a voice that was way too close to Danny. He started, jerking away from the voice, trying to put distance between himself and it. He couldn't fight back, he couldn't retaliate, he reminded himself. He couldn't give in to his reflexes. He had to look for an opening to get away.

"It does, doesn't it?" simpered the first. "No sign of the power that defeated Pariah Dark."

"Not even a sign of that oh-so-famous wit."

"I think it might be sick."

"I do believe that you are correct."

Danny didn't like where this was going. He redoubled his efforts to find a way out. He suspected that a third Observant was lurking nearby, and there really wasn't anything around that could provide cover from the ones he could see. He doubted that his shields would have much effect.

"Now, what do you do with pets that are so ill?"

"Why, regrettably, you put them down."

Oh, Danny really wasn't liking this. Maybe if he flew off in a weird enough direction, it would confuse them?

"Don't you think that Clockwork might even thank us for this service?"

"I think he might."

Faster thank Danny could blink, there were massive ectoblasts in each of their hands. He could feel the telltale tingle of an ectoenergy buildup behind him as well. Out of options, he flew straight up, only to be confronted by an Observant waiting in that direction.

"Stop!" shrieked Danny, panicked, not really expecting it to have any effect. Surprisingly, it did. The Observants hesitated, paused, just long enough for Danny to evade their attack. He pressed the small advantage this gave him, and fled.

.

.

.

Eventually, he made it to Long Now following that odd tug in his core. He was a little nervous. He usually didn't come to Long Now unless he was invited. Still, the doors swung open, and Danny walked in.

Clockwork was waiting for him. Danny wasn't very good at reading the mysterious old ghost, but he thought that Clockwork looked pleased to see him. The ghost was smiling, and not in the I-know-everything-I'm-so-mysterious way that he usually smiled. Blushing, Danny offered up the plant.

"Thank you, Daniel," said Clockwork, ruffling Danny's snowy hair, and taking the tree. "I know how much effort you put into this." He shifted from adult into child form. "Let's get that properly situated in the garden, now shall we?"

They took a much more direct route to the garden than Danny had taken before. It was only to be expected. This was Clockwork's lair, he'd know how to get around.

They came out into the little courtyard, and Clockwork, in elder form, flew up to the tree. Danny followed close behind, never quite touching the older ghost.

"Do you know what grafting is, Daniel?"

"Sort of," answered Danny. "Sam talks about it sometimes. It's when you take a branch of one tree, and cut it, and then another tree, and you make a cut on that, and then you put the cuts together, and you tape them, and the branch will grow into the tree. Like a transplanted limb, except the tree doesn't have to take, um, antirejection medicine."

"Very good," said Clockwork. "You know what I am going to do, then?"

"You're going to cut it, so you can graft it onto the tree."

"Very good," repeated Clockwork. "Please hold this," he said, giving Danny the tree. He created in his now empty hands a pair of green garden shears, and, a moment later, he cut the small tree cleanly, near its base. Danny bit his lip. He had known what was going to happen, but it still felt weird. Clockwork then cut a piece off the large tree. He took the small branch from Danny, and held it against the tree. "Watch closely," he said. Danny drifted closer.

The best way that Danny could describe what Clockwork did next, was to say that he pinched time around the graft. He got the feeling that Clockwork was... exaggerating what he was doing, so that Danny could feel it. It was a very strange sensation.

The grafted branches grew together even as Danny watched, the scar growing smaller and smaller.

"Wow," said Danny.

"I am going to show you how to do that," announced Clockwork.

"What, really?" asked Danny excitedly. There were so many things that he could do with a power like that.

"You must promise me, though, not to use it on humans, ghosts, or living or intelligent things, until I tell you that you may."

"Oh," said Danny, his excitement only a little dampened. "Okay. I promise. Why?"

"Not all things take to it as well as trees. In humans, it could cause gangrene. I know you dont want to discover that the hard way."

"No," said Danny. "Thank you, Grandfather."

"Thank you, Daniel, for the lovely gift." He put an arm around Danny's shoulders. Danny leaned into Clockwork's side, his core starting to purr. "Would you like a cookie?"

"Yes, please."


End file.
